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And so our Adventure begins...
Parade through Paris
All the Gumball cars did a parade trough Paris, Champs Elysees, Sacre-Ceur to the Eiffel tower were the start line was located. During rush-hour in Paris, the chaos was complete. An Irish Hummer with homemade number-plate was the first one to say hello to the French police as it had 9 persons onboard, hanging’ out the windows
Gathering by Eiffel tower
All the cars where displayed at the Trocadero in front of the Eiffel Tower to be admired by the public.
Traffic jam
The start went off at 18.00 local time, and Team 132 only did 8km the first hour in a complete traffic jam. When we first came out on the open road, we where not sure what speed to do, when we had the impression that the French police is very strict with regard to that kind of behavior. We experienced the latter, anyway, we figured it our when a Hummer H2 passed us doing’ approximately 180kph. After that reminder we rarely drove that slow, faster cars was comin’ up from behind in a hurry, and we followed. A British Porsche 911 was not happy toddling along, so he passed some trucks on the road shoulder, we had cars in front of us, and had to copy him. The 911 disappeared hitting’ speeds well over 250kph and then, 10 minutes later… the first police car and the 911 was stopped. We passed the police-car braking hard from 180kph and stopped at the next gas station, and the cars behind us told that the Brit and his car was escorted away by the Police. We where among the first cars to take an exit of the highway and meet the police there, we waved and got smiles back, the ones behind us were not that lucky, even so we sent them text messages, most of them where pulled over. The French police was aware of us, but probably did not predict that we would leave Paris in the dark.
1st Check point - food, race track
First check point, is one of the best private racetracks in the world, we drove into a village to ask for directions. None of the 50 kids spoke English, but they showed us the way when we asked for the name, our burnout as a “thank you” was probably in an international language. At the checkpoint we were served duck and French cheese, very good! That was off course only for the Gumballers that were able to make it in time.
Cruising in the dark
Further out on the open road we, and a fellow Ferrari were testing the grip on the new tires. Good grip and handling, and later that night we entered Spain in heavy rain. 100km north of Madrid we experienced show and fog. A couple of speed cameras got us, but as we frequently changed our front number-plate, we will probably not hear from them again. The number-plate that received most attention among the other Gumballers was probably our own translation of Gumball: “C U M B A L L”. During the night in France we experienced that fans had gathered at the toll stations, waiting for hours in bad weather conditions just to get some photos of the cars. Thanks to all of you that sent photos on the way.
Driving fast with silver Porsche GT2 and a blue and a yellow M3 (saucy)
We were hitting high speed during the night, sometimes charging hard together with others in a hurry.
Paris – Police-escort + real Madrid (donut)
To round up for the Checkpoint Real Madrid stadium Santiago Bernabeu we where entering Madrid during rush hour, People where pointing and talking in Spanish to show us directions, and we got a bit lost and had to stop a police car (Better do it this way than the other! and ask for directions. They escorted us into the checkpoint, and we gave them a Carburetor CD and some Gumball stickers. Spanish police had a much more relaxed attitude than the French Police. In front of the Stadium we did some donuts, and to the amusement of the fans gathered. At the next checkpoint we were informed about a 911 that did the same thing, hitting the sidewalk, which ended the Gumball Rally for him After a quick breakfast and a bit rallying on the grass, we hit the road again.
Fast driving with two black Ferraris and a red Noble
The GPS was a little unstable outside Madrid due to some work on the highway, so we got lost in some industrial areas, wheel spin in the dirt, but “It’s not a race, it’s a rally! Heading south we where accompanying two black Ferrari’s, one from Monaco and one from Rome. Later we played with a red Noble.
Marbella after 2100 km nonstop
Heading for Marbella after 2100km nonstop, partly in bad driving conditions we where quite tired. We checked into the hotel, about 20 cars in front of us of 180 in total. The car was sent for cleaning, it was dirty and some of the stickers were partly ripped off due to high speed cruising over a long period of time.
Reception, dinner and party
We spent the time in the hotel quite effective, uploading pictures and video to the gumball.no webmasters, ****, shower, shave and reorganizing the stash. Even got a couple of hours sleep before reception and dinner. The reception started at 21.00 local time, and 6 hours after 50 cars were still missing. Those who could handle it was partying that night, but most of the Gumballers where tired.
Late arrival in Marbella for many
The main reason why many spend a long time was due to police and bad planning, a lot of the cars ran out of fuel, some went from house to house asking for fuel. A Norwegian Team and a Ferrari ENZO had to use some gangster tricks to steal some fuel from a closed gas station. Many got lost, and one of the Norwegian teams lost more than two hours on a detour as they where heading for Bordeaux center, and had to exit again during rush hour.
The Police stopped many participants, and 5 cars, names not to be mentioned (but also a Norwegian Team) spent a night in police custody and had to go straight to Marbella after being released. Both the other Norwegian Teams got their laser warning equipment confiscated, resulting in a 850 Euro fine. Our tactic, including high speed, was to always be in the front of the groups of cars. The Police did not always have enough time to set up the gear as we were rocking and rolling away We did also have some company with people far madder than us, with laser warning equipment, radar warning equipment, laser jammer, high spirit, money and bribes. Some experienced technical problems, some driver licenses where confiscated, but people are still happy, not everybody does have driver license, some does have more than one…
Next stop Morocco
From Marbella to the Ferry Terminal it is approximately 80 km, and 180 cars doing a least 180Kph on this short stretch would probably give the police enough income for the next years, and not that many cars on the ferry. The time onboard the ferry we spent writing this letter, many tired faces on the ferry today. Some papers prepared. Then up for a show on the Harbor with lots of donuts and Porsches smoking their wheels.
Tanger, Morocco
Morocco is a complete chaos, and we probably did it even worse, The culture-shock hit us, and we had to adjust. We did. Unfortunately we left the ferry quite late, had some catch-up to do, spinnin’ the wheels and away we went.. With a small fuel-tank in the Roadster, we had to refuel first, and as we entered the gas station, there where 3-4 cars in line, and when we left almost 30! It was only one fuel pump with unleaded fuel of all the 8 fuel pumps available. Typically the gas station refused credit cards and euro, and they explained that most of the other Gumballers only carried Euro, they figured out an exchange rate (in their favor) Not even that, but the boss himself, Maximillion and the official Moroccan security staff did a briefing which resulted in this: Between the cities we could go as fast as we wanted, but in the cities we had to slow down, fair enough! The problem with so many cars up front that never got the message, was that not even this we where able to do properly. Maximillion told us at the drivers briefing in Paris that we had to take it easy and behave, as we where official guests of the King, that was not much worth after all. The fastest driving was definitely going on in Morocco and all cars that was capable of doing more than 300Kph did so. Even we where overtaken by an Audi RS4, doing 310Kph, as we where maxing out at approximately 260Kph. The speed of the Audi was probably more, since the driver informed us that the speedometer was only marked up to 310Kph. They had two passengers in the back, and one of them was sleeping off a hang-over in a couple of hours in this speed!.
We saw a lot of police, they waved and smiled at us, telling us to hurry up with the movements of their arms, maybe the thought we were going slow? The funny thing was that the police where doing laser controls at the highway, but that was not for us, even so it was only for the traffic in the opposite direction. A bit later we experienced the first accident. Moroccans are obviously not used to cars coming up from behind doing 300Kph +. The Lamborghini got a hit on the right front side; the other civilian car was hit hard, rolling around, wrecked in a ditch. Luckily no one was hurt. The first check point was Casablanca and Ricks Café, lunch there, and then heading towards Marrakech. “It’s not a race, it’s a rally” we experienced as it all got a bit crazy heading south, probably more like the car game.
Greetings
